The present invention relates to an improvement in the vertical stacking system described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/549,167. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved vertical carousel in which sliding doors use blocking rails or any other height control system in combination with restricted access totes. Reference is made to said U.S. patent application for a discussion of storage and retrieval equipment of this type in general and of a vertical storage system with restricted access.
One potential disadvantage of current sliding door vertical storage systems is that they do not permit utilization of the entire depth of the carrier. Moreover, access is restricted to one part at a time.
In addition, even with the improvements found in the sliding door system described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/549,167, each carrier, although providing for subdivision left to right into different size compartments, requires a depth of fixed amount, e.g., about 15 inches. This requirement has been found to make difficult, at least in certain situations, the storage of smaller size parts.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved sliding door system in which a specially configured tote, in combination with a height control system such as a blocking rail arrangement and the like permits the entire depth of the storage system to be utilized while restricting access to one part at a time.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a tote which advantageously permits the depth of the storage system to be subdivided into multiple compartments, e.g., three or more.